


Immortal Beings

by Stormandozone



Series: A City Standing [2]
Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2019-02-08 04:08:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12856422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stormandozone/pseuds/Stormandozone
Summary: The court of Crota and the nobility of the Hive have nothing in grandeur and grace when compared to Ikora Rey's reign-- And Ayana learns from the best.





	1. Antechamber

In the clouds that haloed the Traveller, in the golden and pale skies, the tower rose over all. In the heart of the pillar, the Vanguard ruled-- the voices of the Guardians would preside over a court of immortals; at their feet, factions scuffled over resources and attention. Above them the Speaker watched-- he was their guide, their vein to the god that waited in the sky for them. It was like the old tales, from the days before the pale gift had come to them.

(She had no memory of the time before, but she knew the old stories of knights and monsters.)

They had come here victorious; the world outside thinned of creatures and threats from the bite of their bullets and the brilliance of their Light. Welcomed, they were enveloped by the controlled energy of the Vanguard’s court.

Victor, Predatoir and Ayana returned on the winged praises of their works, but though the Titan and Hunter were buoyed by the adulations, their Warlock remained behind, her face low, eyes never lifting from the rubber tops of her boots. She had walked the moon, the Fallen and Hive fleeing before them, but her efforts always paled before those of the others.

So, when they moved to take their places, she drifted.

(The Traveller was older than the world, older than their kind and the monuments erected in its honor. It was strange to know that the edifice of their greatest heights of achievement, and the defender of their lowest lows, was not always theirs. Would not always be…)

Ayana stood aside, near the window of the tower that looked over the deep forest of the European wilds. The coniferous blanket smoothed over the shale and slid up the sides of mountains, covering some entire while crashing against the unseen frozen cold on others, their peaks barren white. The City’s walls kept the wilderness at bay, but it kept them apart from the realness of the world, and suspended she could only trail fingers over glass for the cold of the winter without.

Behind her, the operations of the Vanguard continued, like the mechanisms within the machines they used as aides and assistants.

Victor and Zavala spoke in low tones, heads bowed over the map of the Cosmodrome. Scarred hands-- one pair copper, the other periwinkle-- spanned the glowing ridges and valleys, holographic representation of the familiar landscape flickering-- the Titan’s moving the pieces of ranks and file this way and that. She saw their efforts, in the reflection of the glass; saw how their eyes would slide to the window as well... the way they looked at the wild. There was respect, and apprehension in their gazes. She did not understand it, but she trusted them, always.

Sometimes, Victor would look away, and she could see in the lines in his jaw and throat how he looked to the Traveller; how he loved it, and all it represented.

She missed the looks that the other levelled her way; the wonder of the awoken commander reflected in the glass and yet never reached her.

Predatoir’s voice cut through the quiet of the control room. “--you owe me for that, Machine.” There was a snarl to her words; there was always a snarl to her, but this was warm with anger and riddled with the cracks that indicated she might laugh through the ire. It was as lively as electricity or flame; a strange cast to a voice so easily icy, and so often bladed against the only other awoken of their team.

“Machine? I’m hurt!” Cayde-6 shot back, his smile showing through despite the fact his metal features would never crinkle in one. There was a glow of orange in his words, mouth working through the sounds that emerged despite the movement. “I’ve always been more fond of tin can, myself, but if I have to be a robot, can’t I be… pinnacle of engineering? Makes me sound so elite.”

“More like obsolete.”

“Hey!”

Like jostling animals, they continued their banter-- Predatoir was always in the space that belonged to others, pushing against them, in and overwhelming-- but around Cayde-6 it seemed natural; he pushed against the restraints of mores as much as she did. He was no consumer, but he was an animal as much as she; where she was teeth and claws and eyes in the dark, he was leanness and fast and watchful, unblinking gazes, hooting at the dark to see what would scare up.

They stayed in the periphery of the window’s reflection, where the shine became shadow. She could just see the outlines… or the glow of their eyes.

Hunters always occupied that place where the edges of things met-- where life met death, where wisdom met recklessness. The bickered, but in the words… she heard the secret language of scouts and assassins. There was information in every barb, offered back in kind.

It was a language she could not speak, and only understood because she had listened every moment, craved the rise and fall, the pitch and enunciation of each word. Like a song, their back and forth surrounded her thoughts. She chased them now, the words that had meanings beyond hers, reflecting on conversations of months before, postulating those yet to come. It drew her eyes away from them, back to the wintery landscape below, the echos of her misunderstandings ringing in her mind.

She missed the way their gazes flicked to her; one red and burned like flame; the other blue, and sharp against the dark. When the roil of their words fled her, they had already moved on, pointing to the other end of the map, regaling of victories and challenges completed.

Ayana sighed; such was the way of the Vanguard.

(Before there was a Vanguard, the factions had warred like fiefdoms; each claimed land and resources and vassals. They had been kings, or young gods, full of their Light and power; it had taken a war to bind them as Guardians. She had learned of these dark days, when she rested between matches in the Crucible, Shaxx’s words a low and heady thrum in her mind, his warmth radiating through his armor.)

Below, something caught her eye.

The forest was thick, but between the leaves and needles, through the green there was something moving. Ayana’s gaze was drawn away from the machinations of the Tower and the gods who lived in their haloed thrones to the low places below them; pale fingers pressed to the cool glass, the energy wall flickering slightly at the contact. It moved… Slowly.

Something inside her caught fast. This thing in the wild-- it was not a creature or Guardian-- it pushed through, flashes of bright color showing briefly before once more lost to sight.

Ayana leaned forward, fingertips trailing down as her white gaze cut sharp through the distance; she felt it then, the warmth of the figure, their life burning and growing like sunlight and green things. A turn, and she saw a girl-- woman? A creature in those years between the two, all rounded limbs and hair the color of bright flames, yellow and orange and red.

The woman turned, and green eyes lifted up-- Ayana felt a clicking inside her as they recognized the living essence between each other, acknowledgement as old as their genus. Her lips parted, to ask the questions-- how, who--

A hand brushed her sleeve, and Ayana was shocked into breaking contact with the girl below.


	2. Audience

“You are very quiet.” Ikora Rey’s voice was a magic all its own; light and commanding, playful and condescending and wise. It was enchanting, and all thought of the world below fled.

Ayana swallowed tight. “I have little of merit to say.” Her white eyes were reflected in the deep brown of Ikora’s, and there she could watch her own emotions play out within the woman’s sight; the curiosity and benevolence in the preeminent Warlock.

The stormcaller was tall; not as lofty as her cohorts, but wiry with strength and purpose, that gave her greater presence than her frame. Slender without frailty, strong without bulk, she was the epitome of grace and poise-- all that her fellows of intellect and dedication should strive for.

This all without describing skin as rich and dark as Titan’s seas, eyes of stormclouds hued with deep brown sillimanite… 

(They said in whispers, that her beauty made the vain Osiris envious, the Speaker pause-- it was lies. Ayana was wise enough to know beauty was the excuse they gave to explain her superiority-- Ikora Rey was simply better and those with small minds could not comprehend it. Osiris knew this, and had invested in her great knowing. The Speaker heeded it, and knew her power. Ayana was weak enough to know true strength, when compared to those who only feigned it).

Made of spinmetal and phaseglass, Ayana could not compare.

Ikora’s hand withdrew from Ayana’s arm, but her smile remained. “What you have to say should always have merit; that you know when to let silence reign shows a discernment few have.” It was a compliment, perhaps, but veiled with cutting slights.

It was a turn of words that Ayana could never replicate, and left her more in awe. 

Ikora turned her back to the window as well, the brunt of her gaze slipping over the control room as she spoke in private tones. “Your companions have much to say of what they accomplished.” She canted her head, brown eyes full of vigor and amusement. Again, that snap to those who spoke-- but only those outside the Vanguard’s grace; for once, Ikora’s own fireteam was silent, their strange link to the woman somehow commanding them to be  _ above _ the quiet murmurings of Victor and the snap and snarl of Predatoir. “And those who know nothing of your team have even more to add, praises or condemnations-- depending on level of envy. You have made waves in whispers, young one, and they have reached my ears and piqued my interest.”

Unsure of her place, and knowing to speak was to admit more ignorance, Ayana bowed her head. “Those with accolades speak truly; My Titan and Hunter bear the honor of progress and reclamation.”

“I know.” Warmth suffused Ikora’s words, lulling and pleasant. “Zavala has no time for baseless arrogance, and Cayde no time for chaos without purpose. Your companions have done well, young Warlock. Tell me of your time in the Lunar sphere.”

Ayana smiled then; she could speak on Predatoir and Victor’s victories with ease. “They have much to share… their reports are filled with the movement of Hive and Fallen, how the machinations of politics play out in strange games.” She lifted pale hands and summoned a thread of arclight, pale and stormy in her hands. It glowed between them, and Ikora’s expression continued to warm. “The House of Exiles shift restlessly; with no Kell and no Archon, they wander aimless and hungry. Their Barons are… lordlings without land, their Servitors collecting and combining Ether for only the smallest assemblages. It is easy to disrupt their power-plays and politics, as such alliances are helium-fillament thin to begin with.” She let her eyes drop, thoughts spinning wildly without course.

(The House of Exiles reminded her of the dark days, the Collapse, when the newly forged Risen had been nothing more than the dead reawoken, no guidance and no creed. The Living Crucible had told her of the darkest days, and how Guardians turned on one another, fighting for scraps in the shadow of a dead god. Her heart had ached for those lost Lightbearers, as it had for the Fallen who had lost their Light when the Traveller… fled from them. 

So it was, the Exiles and the Risen were of a kind; having no lords to order, demand or reign them in. They had both Fallen, and tried to rise again.

She wondered, if in time, they too could make a Vanguard.)

Ikora nodded, disrupting the axis of her contemplation-- the sign for Ayana to continue.

Hastily, she moved her hands, the arclight flickering as she moved. “The Hive… they have corrupted the heart of the moon.” 

_ Darkness like hungry mouths. The crawl and creep of things within living walls, breathing ceilings, the scent of death like rotten meat and ancient mental-- grinding in mechanisms meant to end and finish and stop, anything that dared place itself between the nameless dark and the pale Light. Eyes that burned and smoldered with hate and ravenous lust for destruction, a heedless hell-bent crusade of nihilism and sharp edges-- _

A gasp rose and she stifled it with a swallow, pale eyes growing wide as pale lips thinned, the thread of Light snapping in her hands. The dust and filth of the Hive had returned to choke her, even in the safety of the Tower.

She shook it away, unwilling to show such weakness to the woman she admired. “I would not be best to describe it… the others, the fireteam… They know of what was done and seen, have earned the right to speak of what was found; theirs are worthy tales, and worthier of accolade than...” Shyly, her eyes slipped again to her boots. 

“I need no scouting report, Little Light.” The endearment on Ikora Rey’s lips was sweet and diminishing by equal parts, and Ayana wilted. The woman continued. “My Hidden are fully aware of what has transpired in the corridors of the moon.” 

Ikora slipped her hand once more over Ayana’s arm, and with the deftness and grace of a queen drew the young warlock from the window, and into the twilight shadows of her court; the upraised dias of the control room. Her step was purposeful and quick, and it was all Ayana could do to keep her grace as she was pulled along. “What I would like to hear from you, is what you saw there, and what you learned.”

Ayana flushed, the blue-lavender heat rising to her cheeks. She let herself be lead to the corner of the dais, where she could see… everything of the room, the hunters as they bantered, the titans in their wartalks.

This was how a warlock was supposed to see the world; in every piece, at a distance. Understanding and breaking down the information to paint the picture, whole. This is not a view for the unworthy, she knew, and wondered if this meant she was trespassing, or if this was her chance to prove all. Ayana understood this even as she was guided to her place, and Ikora Rey’s eyes found her own. Ayana dipped her face away, unable to hold the gaze-- and looked to the court the woman would preside over.

(Once, when she was newly woken, when Light blinded her eyes, she remembered a look similar to the one upon Ikora’s-- The Queen was equal parts amused and curious about the pale foundling, though her interest was with more purpose than that of the Vanguard’s own Lady.

Perhaps Ikora Rey’s purpose was simply less hungry than Mara Sov’s… or better hidden)

Face to the subtle machinations of a court, she did not see the other woman lean in, her hand light on Ayana’s elbow as her whisper was shared. “Accomplishments earned and feats done are of value to the Vanguard, Warlock, but not so much as what was learned-- and they have nothing to say of it.” The voice sent shivers down Ayana’s spine. “There is little to learn from victory, as Lord Shaxx is so fond of saying. In you, I feel learning, and so loss.”

Ayana turned to meet Ikora’s gaze, and she was awash in a clear storm-- cirrus and cumulus of recognition, winds of scathing understanding, an eye of calm that was equal parts light and dark, a pupil that captured all that it saw-- peace within... the stormcaller’s eyes were depths unto themselves. 

It was this, and the quiet of their corner kingdom, that allowed Ayana to speak freely where Victory had warned her not to.


End file.
